The experience!!

The morning dawned and in true Indian spirit the people assembled by the poolside for the trek at 8.00. a good hour and a half late...the next 2 hours was to some the best experiences in their life (atleast that is what they told me). For me it was a rekindling of the spirit that my forester grandpa had instilled in me.
The forest and the orange county estate were not that different in the morning dew, only the fencing demarcating the boundary of the dubare forest. We made our way to the forest and was the estate slowly stirring into life, with ladies under plastic sheets picking their way thru the coffee plants.
The trek threw up something new at every turn, a gnarled tree that resembled a python wapped around a man, a spooky bamboo grove, a steep ravine thru which we were to climb down and then climb up on the other side, leeches that sucked the blood of a few lucky people. and then the most majestic of all..the kaveri
This is what surrealism is all about, u walk down a jungle not knowing what lay ahead, and then out of nowhere u see the mighty kaveri in spate, roaring thru the jungle, the morning sun shining on it. It does make one philosophical. and u realise the insignificance of human existence, your troubles, egos, ur desires..how they all pale when compared with the underlying rhythm that nature seems to have, u r but a mere spec on this earth, millions of which have come and gone before..
Everybody was silent on the walk back, maybe too overawed by nature or then by the hunger pangs in their stomachs. The rain was giving us company all along, as was our guide ganesan's singing. Rajkumar numbers and kodagan tribal songs...never made head or tail of it, but nonetheless they fitted the mood to a T.
The sigh of breakfast laid out by the poolside, all 8 different varities of it meant that people set aside their civility, and attacked the food with the dirt from the jungle all over them. As for me, the thayir saatham guy that i was, it was idli and sambhar for me.. Soft idlies, vada and hot onion sambhar...never realised that these could ever be so tasty..
A little rest and then it was lunch, Leeches still popping up from people after they had had their fill.
The journey back began and with the rain splashin on the windows, everyone gently drifted into sleep, the rocking bus more like a cradle this time around. The return journey was more sedate, people receding into the comfort of their friends circles. But then chatting away still like there was no tomorrow. made me realise how u could be sitting next to someone for a whole year and still manage to share in a day what you couldnt in a year. and as the chatter in the train continues, i managed to hit the bed to get some shut eye. Too tired to think of the drudgery ahead
Awawken next day, groggy headed and my face sticking to the rexin of the railway birth, hitting home the fact that chennai was here.. "Chennai central...parrrr...aaapka swagat hain :-(( "